After Alva left, the table was starting to look a little light with only four people remaining. Of course, there was no way that the people filming this event would allow the chairs at the feature table to stay empty for long. They broke up one of the other tables, reassigning the players to new seats to fill in the gaps. None of the new people who arrived were names that I recognized, and for the most part they ended up just being fodder for Danni. The Brazilian woman was wearing a catlike smile as she expanded her lead against the field further and further. I could tell she was having a fantastic time. Not only did she crush the only woman who was really challenging her dominance, but she had pulled out ahead of even Vincente Alcon, Ewan Cunningham, and Nikita Zakharov. Danni was on a roll, and nothing was going to stop her.

I stayed out of Danni’s way as best I could, not interested in trying to take the formidable Brazilian on. I managed to recoup a few of my losses against some of the newcomers however, my trick of making strange statements in a salesman’s voice seeming to be effective in dealing with these more normal opponents. I was beginning to think that maybe I had more natural aptitude for this than I was giving myself credit for. Against the absolute top players my untrained skills were worthless, but against the normal pros I was fairly effective, despite the clear advantage they had over me in experience. I had been unlucky so far to run into so many powerhouses so soon, which perhaps had given me a skewed view of the abilities of the average player. I would have to take these easy wins while I could get them, however. The field was starting to thin out a little already, and soon the only people I’d have left to face would be the seemingly unstoppable monsters.

By the end of the day I was still below the tournament chip average, but I at least had rebuilt a reasonable pile. I hadn’t managed to actually bust any players, but I had certainly set them up pretty well for Danni, who was busting players left and right. By the end of play the table looked exactly as it had before the new players had been brought in to join us, with only myself, Marek, Robert, and Danni left. Robert was seemingly in a trancelike state, teetering on the precipice of passing out. Amazingly, however, his pile had only grown larger. When it was finally announced that we were stopping for the day, he dragged himself up from his chair and stumbled towards the door, pointing to his chips and yelling “Hey! Can somebody bag those up for me? Thanks.” to nobody in particular.

I bagged up my own chips in silence, signed them, and made my way out of the door. It had been an emotional day, and I was still a little shell-shocked over Alva’s loss. Was she planning to buy back in? She could still do that as long as she did so before tomorrow. Did she even want to? That odd experience of seeing her happier after she had lost still loomed large in my memory. As I walked away from the ballroom, I heard somebody standing in a crowd of players call out to me “Hey Romeo! Going for another jog? You know you’re only supposed to run if the man proposes to you, right?” I ignored this and kept walking. Of course, people were still going to be making fun of me for my behavior last night. Other than Lucas they’d all maintained some level of decorum at the tables, but now it was back to being open season on Bryson. I supposed I couldn’t pretend like I didn’t deserve it. I’d acted like a complete idiot in front of everybody. I couldn’t really begrudge them the opportunity to bust my chops.

As I walked away from the laughing group I saw Shirley Fey walking towards the ballroom. She spotted me and quickly walked over in my direction with a concerned look on her face.

“Hey, Bryson? Are you doing okay? I’ve been worried about you ever since you ran off in the middle of our conversation last night,” she told me.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said, “I guess I got overwhelmed by… well, I mean, you’ve probably heard by now, right?”

“About the fact that you came here for Alva? Yes, I already know. I feel really badly about how it turned out. It must be horrible to put all that effort into trying to win over somebody you care about only to have the door slammed on you like that.”

“It wasn’t fun, but I guess maybe it was better to rip the Band-Aid off,” I said. I didn’t really feel like talking about this anymore today, so I decided to change the topic. “So you’ll be happy to know that Lucas got busted again today!”

“Really?” Shirley grinned, “Did Nikita take him out again?”

“No, unfortunately I do not get to do honors this time,” boomed a voice from behind me.

Nikita strode up to us, his hands in his pockets, looking to be in a much better mood than he had been this morning. I hadn’t been paying a ton of attention to what had gone on at his table, but from what I had seen he was accumulating quite an impressive number of chips. I was sure he was one of the frontrunners, which wasn’t surprising given his talents.

“Who manage to crush little cockroach this time?” Nikita asked through his thick accent.

“That Polish guy, Marek,” I informed him.

“Not big surprise. Marek is good player. Still, shame I could not have done this thing myself.”

“You might get another shot, He’s apparently buying a third bullet,” I said.

“Buying in three times?” Shirley shook her head, “some people are simply made of money. Twice is already absurdly expensive enough.”

“He feel need to burn daddy’s money somehow, I think,” Nikita mused, “Is unfortunate that you do not rejoin game yourself, Shirley. You sure you don’t want to? Is still time.”

“No, I really shouldn’t. Besides, I can’t wait to enjoy Barcelona to the fullest without even thinking about cards.”

“What you plan to do there?” Nikita asked her.

“I’d love to try out the local cuisine,” Shirley replied, “so I’m going on a tapas tour. I’m going to sample as much as I can, and to hell with my waistline!” she laughed.

“This sound like fun idea,” Nikita said, “Would it be too much trouble if I tag along?”

“Not at all!” Shirley looked pleasantly surprised, “I’d love to have you come with me Nikita!”

“Good, then that is what I do!” the large Russian boomed, “This ‘tapas tour’ sound like precisely what I need. Playing poker for hours builds up appetite, yes?”

“You’re not wrong,” I agreed, suddenly feeling my appetite flare up, “I only just realized how hungry I was myself.”

“You must have come down from adrenaline high. I remember back in early days when that happen to me,” Nikita laughed, “Anyway, Bryson, I see you win a few good hands today.”

“I didn’t know you were watching,” I admitted.

“Only sometimes, while waiting for new hand. I must admit, I did not think you would make it through second day.”

“I didn’t either,” I told him, “But what you told me this morning really helped me out. I think that was just the kick in the ass I needed to really start playing. Oh, and I… I wanted to say sorry again for accidentally trying to break into your room.”

“Is water under bridge,” The big man waved his hand dismissively. “Really, I think I am not quite at top of list of things for you to be worried about right now, eh?”

“Truer words were never spoke,” I sighed, “but I’m still live to win, and that’s the important thing.”

“That’s the spirit!” Shirley said, “So anyway, Nikita, you want to come with me and I’ll show you the details of the tour?”

“Absolutely,” he nodded.

“What about you, Bryson? What are you doing in Barcelona? Do you want to come with us?”

“Thank you, but no,” I said, getting the sense that Nikita might not want me to butt in, “I already have some idea of where I might want to go, but it’s way out of the way.” I was remembering the place that Vincente had described to me the day before, a garden where you could stroll by the sea and clear your mind. That would be the most perfect thing for me right now.

“Well, I hope you have fun. Take care!” Shirley told me, and she and Nikita walked away. My eyes followed them as they left, and as they made their way across the deck to the side railing of the ship to head towards Shirley’s room or wherever it was they were going, my eyes caught two familiar figures already standing over there. Vincente and Alva were standing by the railing, discussing something that I could not hear. Despite the fact that their words did not reach me, however, their body language struck me as strange. Vincente seemed to be pleading with Alva about something. He was still suave, still cool and collected, but the gestures that he was making with his hands were those of a man who was trying to delicately persuade somebody to do something. Whatever it was, Alva seemed to be rather reluctant. Vincente put a hand on her shoulder put his forehead to hers, and said something that I didn’t need to hear to know it was somewhere along the lines of could you do this… for me? Whatever it was he was asking, Alva finally relented, nodding her head slowly, then sighing, then walking away. Vincente watched after her for a minute, then turned and walked in the other direction past me. I pretended as though I hadn’t been watching and allowed him to pass. To my surprise, he flashed me his normal toothy smile at me when he walked past. I would have expected him to be a little less friendly to a man that virtually everyone on the boat knew at this point carried a torch for his woman, but at least in passing he seemed to believe we were on friendly terms.

I returned the smile as best I could, and then made my way to my room to start preparing to get off the boat in Barcelona. I wondered as I did what I had just witnessed. Alva had most certainly not been smiling during that exchange, not even her weakened smile. Just what did Vincente want of her? Whatever it was, it was almost certainly none of my business, but still, something didn’t feel right about it somehow. I didn’t know if it was just my jealousy making me biased towards Vincente, but somehow I got the sense that Alva was being asked to do something that really bothered her to do. It wasn’t the wedding, was it? No, she had been genuine in her happiness when Vincente proposed, no doubt about it. Today’s events had shown that Alva couldn’t act to save her life, so it’s not as though she hadn’t meant it when she was nearly jumping for joy. It must be something else, but what? Try though I might, I couldn’t figure out what it might be. I decided not to waste my time running in mental circles and I relegated this question to the back of my mind for the time being.